ELBERTA, Ala. — Elberta High School is looking for a new head football coach after Joel Williams, the Elberta football coach for the past two seasons, was told Monday afternoon that he was being relieved of his duties. Williams confirmed the decision on Tuesday.
The move follows a 1-9 season for the Warriors in Class 5A. Williams went 1-19 over his two seasons at the Baldwin County school, which will now be searching for the fourth head coach in the history of a program that played its first season in 2018.
A late start and a short roster
Williams said he was hired in June 2025. Because he arrived so late in the calendar, he said, he had just one offseason session with the team before fall practice began, and he started that first season with only 28 players on the roster.
According to Williams, school officials told him at the time that they wanted a coach for the long term, recognizing that building a young program would take time.
A bigger, but much younger, team this fall
By this season, participation had grown substantially. Williams said Elberta’s roster reached 70 players. But it was a young group: by his count, 55 of those players were “not old enough to drive.”
Williams said as many as eight freshmen held starting roles. Injuries added to the challenge, and he said the Warriors played their final three games without a true quarterback.
Elberta also competed this fall as one of the smallest schools by enrollment in Class 5A. The Alabama High School Athletic Association assigns schools to classifications largely based on enrollment, so a school near the bottom of its class often faces opponents with significantly larger student bodies to draw from. The AHSAA revisits those assignments every two years.
Offseason program was set to begin
The timing of the decision came just as the team was preparing to look ahead. Williams said he and his staff had been ready to launch the offseason program on Monday — the same day he was informed of the change — with 120 players signed up to take part.
In high school football, the winter and spring offseason is when much of a program’s development happens, from strength and conditioning work to installing schemes ahead of spring practice. Whoever takes over at Elberta will inherit that large group of interested players, along with a roster that was heavily made up of freshmen and other underclassmen this season.
Thanks to players, parents and his wife
Williams praised the parents and community members who supported the team during his two seasons. He singled out his wife, Martha, who he said volunteered to run the equipment room and fed the players every day throughout the school year.
He also commended the players for their dedication and the effort they gave the program while he was there.
Elberta’s short football history
Elberta’s program is 16-68 across its nine seasons, from its debut in 2018 through this fall. Williams is the program’s third head coach:
- Greg Seibert, 2018-19: 5-9
- Nate McDaniel, 2020-24: 10-40
- Joel Williams, 2025-26: 1-19
A coaching career spanning 47 seasons
Williams brought decades of experience to Elberta. He has coached for 47 seasons, including stints at the college level at Delta State, Mississippi College, Ole Miss, Samford and Birmingham-Southern.
He also worked on the staff of the Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football, the spring professional league that launched in 1991 with teams in North America and Europe.
Before Elberta, Williams had been a high school head coach at four other Alabama programs:
- T.R. Miller in Brewton, 1987-88: 18-5
- UMS-Wright in Mobile, 1994: 5-7
- Gadsden, 2001: 7-4
- Straughn in Covington County, 2019: 1-9
His 2019 season at Straughn came the same year Elberta was playing its second season under Seibert. Williams has also served on high school coaching staffs in Georgia and Florida.
What’s next for Williams and Elberta
Williams said he has already received offers to return to college coaching and expects to hear from high school programs as well. He said he plans to take some time before deciding on his next step.
School officials have not announced a timeline for naming a replacement.
